Remember the hype for The Ghost Inside’s return in 2020? How, years after the horrific bus crash and the hiatus that emerged from it, where any further activity at all seemed so touch-and-go, there was an an almost unparalleled feeling of triumph that they were back? How that self-titled album turned out to be really, really good, befitting of the legacy of some of metallic hardcore and metalcore’s best? Now fast forward four years to Searching For Solace, and the crickets appear to be chirping around it…
It’s not entirely an unexpected response, to be fair. Certain subsets of metalcore seem to be circling back to the mush and lack of integrity that plagued the genre throughout the 2010s, a practice that’s so far below The Ghost Inside’s paygrade that it’s not even funny. So when lead single Wash It Away can feel like a disillusioning pivot—and it’s hardly unprecedented for even good bands to take a lazy day now and then—you can understand some tetchiness. But at the same time…come on, this is The Ghost Inside! They know what they doing, and they’ve certainly earned the good will to trust they won’t flail at the hint of the slightest indiscretion.
Now, to be as fair as possible, Searching For Solace is something of a downgrade. It likely always would be, when much of the steamrolling weight armed by hardcore’s edge has been tabled for a recognisable breed of metalcore. Add in a behind-the-scenes team with collective CVs featuring Spiritbox, Dayseeker and Wage War, and maybe you can see why the faithful might feel a bit antsy. None of those acts are all that conducive with The Ghost Inside’s way of operating; the knee-jerk theorising would suggest an album yanking them in uncomfortable, unconvincing directions. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be the case, despite some cleaner-than-average fingerprints being visible. It’s most present on Cityscapes in its long, languid passage of atmosphere, more emphasised as an element than ever before as it bleeds out for a more oxygenated (or, probably in some viewpoints, sterile) mix.
There’s certainly a different feel than past The Ghost Inside albums. Searching For Solace asserts to lift itself up rather than ram everything around it down, with a lot more time given to clearly delineated choruses and hooks. The band themselves have even said as much, citing an album with “more singing and song structure”, as if to stoke the fires of ‘selling out’ that’ll be demonstrably overblown. This is not a sellout move; if it were, you wouldn’t get the impression that The Ghost Inside care as much as they do. With a voice like Jonathan Vigil’s at the helm—be that in the diaphragm-rattling screams or prime-cut-A-Day-To-Remember choruses—it’s pretty hard to declare there’s no passion here and expect it to be taken seriously. Light Years and Secret alone would trounce entire catalogues of lesser metalcore bands.
Maybe, then, to call this a ‘new flavour’ of material for The Ghost Inside is a bit misleading. More accurately, they’ve elbowed their way into the big, wide, crowded world of metalcore’s mainstream, and are handily running rings around those who believe showing up is enough. This is the way to succeed in that space—by going for the throat and holding onto presence, regardless of how straightforward the material at the core is. You can call that the ‘off-putting’ feature of Searching For Solace if you like—admittedly, the meat on this particular cut doesn’t have as much to savour as prior helpings—but it’s never some unscalable wall that totally precludes quality. To imply as much is simply being disingenuous, and ignoring actual credit where it’s due. It is, in fact, possible to compromise and say that, although the album’s most radio-pilled song in Wash It Away might not have been the best foot to lead with, there’s still a higher class of craftsmanship at work.
Still, the likelihood is that Searching For Solace will face the brunt of zero-sum discourse that afflicts a great swathe of metalcore. There are absolutely critiques that can be made, but a less-than-inspired lyrical set isn’t what a predictably harsh doling of outcry will hinge on, is it? And yeah, okay, there might be disappointment at what can naturally seem like a backslide, particularly when The Ghost Inside’s resurrection was so well-received. But it’s also not that bad, or even bad at all, in fact. There’s still worth to be had from The Ghost Inside going down this route, and in true form, they’re clearly looking to dust off and make good on all of it. Remember—there are plenty of degrees between ‘insta-classic rager’ and ‘abject, objective failure’.
For fans of: Of Mice & Men, Wage War, Polaris
‘Searching For Solace’ by The Ghost Inside is released on 19th April on Epitaph Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
